What is the primary responsibility of a business analyst in a project?

The primary responsibility of a business analyst in a project is to define and document customer requirements. This role is crucial in bridging the gap between stakeholders, including clients and development teams. By gathering and analyzing requirements, the business analyst ensures that the project's outcomes align with the customer's needs and expectations. They facilitate discussions to elicit detailed, actionable insights, which can be translated into specifications for the technical teams.

Accurate documentation of these requirements is essential, as it serves as a reference point throughout the project lifecycle, guiding design, development, and testing processes. Additionally, well-defined requirements help in managing scope and reduce the risk of misunderstandings or mismatched expectations between stakeholders and the project team.

In contrast, while managing project timeframes and budgets is important, this responsibility typically falls to project managers rather than business analysts. Ensuring the quality of deliverables is often the domain of quality assurance professionals, who focus specifically on testing and validating the outputs. Leading the development team is usually a function of a team lead or project manager, not a business analyst, whose focus is more centered on requirements gathering and stakeholder communication.